Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Easy 8 miler

I had a really nice 8 mile run this morning. I wasn't necessarily fast, but I felt great for the whole run - steady and strong. Coming the day after a leg day in the gym, I'm pretty happy.

I've decided to only lift on Mondays and Fridays for these next few weeks. I'm not going to work out twice a day for a while either. I need to cut down on the interference that lifting can create with running, and I need to have one quality workout per day, rather than two mediocre workouts. Hopefully, my midweek mileage and quality work will be really solid for the next few weeks. Today made me feel optimistic about where I am right now.

Tomorrow morning, I'll be doing 9 x 1/2 mile, most likely in the rain. I'm sure tomorrow's workout will be faster than the same workout last Wednesday.

3 comments:

Do you do the weights stuff at the gym to augment your running, or for other reasons. I often struggle with this same thing: my lifting is supposed to help my running, but my runs are total crap after I lift and I don't get the quality run training.

I lift to try to help lose body fat, and to put off the inevitable decline from getting older. I also enjoy it and it helps my skiing and seems to help my running. But, doing leg work at the gym, especially squats and deadlifts, is really tough for a runner, because it often takes me 2 days to recover.

So, when my lifting isn't causing me to skip runs or back off in the length or quality of a run, I think it helps my running. But, I've had days this year where I've lifted so hard that I couldn't run well for a few days afterward.